Are false football hopes a thing of past at UT?

Updated 9:27 pm, Wednesday, April 3, 2013

UT believes its defense will improve with a return to health by Jackson Jeffcoat and others.

UT believes its defense will improve with a return to health by Jackson Jeffcoat and others.

Photo: Elisabeth Dillon, MBR

Are false football hopes a thing of past at UT?

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AUSTIN - Three years ago, Mack Brown said Texas expected to win all of its football games. In 2011 and 2012, he made the same claim.

Now he says we never should have believed him in the first place.

Changing the narrative is a politician's trick, and Brown uses it better than most. Earlier this year, he turned news of an underwhelming recruiting class into a story about prospects not taking commitments seriously, then weaved a tale about how the nation's richest athletic department was "mom and popping it." The public bit on both.

So when Brown told the Dallas Morning News this week that high hopes for his last two teams were unrealistic, many didn't blink. After all, even if a coach revises history to make the future look better, is there anything wrong with that?

The problem, of course, is the same one that has come back to haunt a politician or two. Before each of the three seasons in which his team went a combined 22-16, Brown was as guilty as anyone of instilling expectations he now says were unreasonable. And "trust me now when I tell you I was lying then" is not an effective campaign strategy.

Even when it's true.

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And the thing is, Brown might be right about all of this. Clearly, none of his previous three teams was remotely prepared to compete for titles. They were too poorly motivated (in 2010) or too inexperienced (in 2011) or too inept at basics like tackling (in 2012) for anyone to have taken them seriously.

Brown isn't the only one lecturing outsiders on how they should have known better. Last month, defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said he saw last year's struggles - in which UT yielded more yards per game than any team in school history - coming. Yet he did not object when his players posed last summer for national magazine photo spreads depicting them as one of the nation's elite defenses.

No one is planning any such puff pieces this offseason, but it's not due to a lack of optimism from Brown and Diaz. They say all of the linebackers who were in over their head last fall now know what they're doing. They say a healthy Adrian Phillips at safety will make a difference and that bringing back end Jackson Jeffcoat and linebacker Jordan Hicks from injury will make up for losing Kenny Vaccaro and Alex Okafor to the NFL.

"We're raising what's expected of us," Diaz said.

But as Brown pointed out, low expectations were never the problem.

End to identity crisis

On offense, much has been made of the latest incarnation of the Longhorns' ever-evolving identity. After their efforts to mimic Alabama's running game proved unfruitful, they're now imitating the up-tempo, no-huddle pace of attacks like Oregon's and Oklahoma State's.

It makes sense, because it better prepares the defense to face the kind of teams it will see in the Big 12 on a weekly basis, and it better suits the talents of David Ash, who's finally been declared the team's clear-cut starting quarterback after two years of nagging uncertainty.

That, as much as anything, could be UT's best reason for hope. When Ash talked about becoming a better leader heading into last summer, he still had to deal with the shadow of Case McCoy and a coaching staff that refused to fully endorse him. That's no longer an issue.

"There's no other guy to do it now," Ash said. "It's on my shoulders. It's up to me."

It sounds good for now.

The Longhorns can only hope that by next year they won't find out it was unrealistic.